Princeton: THE IVORY TOWER OF BABEL: Language focus leaves Europe

Tue Feb 20 13:01:04 UTC 2007

Monday, February 19, 2007

THE IVORY TOWER OF BABEL: Language focus leaves Europe

By Kate Benner
Princetonian Staff Writer

Students are gravitating toward the study of languages such as Chinese,
Arabic and Hindi that are considered politically and economically
significant.  During the Cold War, Russian was the popular choice for
students interested in learning a language deemed vital for American
foreign policy interests. Those who wish to do the same today are
increasingly looking to Chinese and Arabic as the languages of choice.
Enrollment in Arabic and Chinese has skyrocketed in the last five years as
students become increasingly aware of the importance of those languages in
policymaking and business. Hindi is being offered for the third
consecutive year at the University and Swahili for the fifth.

    Of the 17 languages currently being taught at the University, students
choose to study some in order to better position themselves in a changing
economic and diplomatic climate. Others are drawn to these languages by
their desire to study non-Western literature and culture.  The
relationship between current events and language study is particularly
clear in the case of Arabic. The immediate increase in enrollment in fall
2001 illustrates students' attentiveness to the languages of politics.
Near Eastern Studies professor Nancy Coffin linked the popularity of
Arabic with the political significance of the Middle East. "Traditionally,
something would happen, and you would get a little tick up [in
enrollment]," she said. She added that she doesn't anticipate any decrease
in the language's popularity since, "unfortunately, the U.S. is now deeply
embroiled in the Middle East."

    "I think Arabic is the new Russian," she said.  Slavic languages and
literature chair Caryl Emerson said that enrollment in Russian classes has
halved since the end of the Cold War.  "In the U.S., students like to take
languages [of places] that we're going to bomb," she said.

Chinese

    Chinese is the best example of a language whose popularity has
increased in tandem with a country's growing economic and political power
on the global stage.  Enrollment in Chinese language classes has increased
every year for the last two decades except for in fall 1989, following the
Tiananmen Square protests.  "In protest, I guess," East Asian Linguistics
Project director Chih-p'ing Chou said, "a lot of students decided not to
study Chinese."

    Though the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages still
labels Chinese a "less commonly taught language," it is one of the
University's four most popular languages along with French, Spanish and
Italian that account for two-thirds of the language students at Princeton.
"In the past, most students taking Chinese were interested in academic
pursuits," Chou said. "Most were interested in the humanities."  Chou, who
has been at the University since the 1970s, explained that Chinese used to
have a reputation as an exotic language, and few Princeton students
focused their studies on contemporary China.

    But, he said, over the last two decades, demand for courses on Chinese
language, culture and politics has steadily increased. He added that the
surge in popularity was for reasons of "economy more than politics."
"The developments of the Chinese economy [have made the language more
popular]," Chou said. "China's visibility is pretty good, and it does have
a tremendous market value."  There was a large jump in CHI 101: Elementary
Chinese I enrollment for the 2006 fall semester, with about 300 students
enrolling in the introductory class, compared to 200 in the fall of 2005.
As enrollment has grown, so has the diversity of students interested in
learning Mandarin, which is the dialect taught at the University. Art
history majors, Wilson School majors and engineers can be found enrolled
in Chinese, though most, Chou said, do not take Chinese to fulfill the
language requirement. Rather, they have "a utilitarian motivation" in
studying the official language of a country with more than 1.3 billion
people.

Arabic

    Enrollment in ARA 101: Elementary Arabic I shot up in the fall of
2001. On Sept. 12, 10 students were enrolled in Arabic 101. By the end of
that term, 19 students were in the class. There was a single lecturer and
section for the class.  "When I first came, enrollment was small, but it
didn't change until September 11, but then, suddenly, everyone switched
into Arabic," Coffin said.  Now, there are 114 students in firstthrough
fourth-year Arabic classes and five lecturers teaching the language.
Before the expansion of the department, there were more heritage speakers
those who have a family background in the language enrolled in the
classes, but the number has since dropped.  Coffin said students studying
Arabic at Princeton have a variety of interests in the language. "There's
a mixture of a few [students] interested in history and culture," she
said, also pointing to comparative literature majors, Wilson School
concentrators and those interested in national security.

Other languages

    In addition to the growth in established languages, Princeton has also
added further options among the non-European languages which have garnered
larger enrollments than they expected.  Student demand led to the
development of a Hindi curriculum for the fall of 2004. There were 15
students in the first HIN 101: Introductory Hindi I class, and all of
those students continued on to second-year Hindi.  Their work has
continued at a quick pace, Hindi professor Mekhala Natavar said. "My
second-year second semester has completed the syllabus, and we are using
third-year materials."  Of the students taking Hindi at Princeton, about
half are heritage learners, and a few are using it to fulfill their
language requirement.

    Natavar attributes the interest in Hindi to a wider interest in India.
"I think it's different from Chinese, although business is growing," she
said. "I don't think learning Hindi is necessary for business."  As for
the future of the Hindi program, Natavar sees it as continuing to grow due
to student interest. "I would like to see it taken to the next level," she
said. "We would [need to] get another faculty member so that the students
[can] have higher level culture and literature class[es]."  In the fall of
2002, when the University first offered SWA 101:  Elementary Swahili I,
four students enrolled in the class.

    By last fall, 20 students were in Elementary Swahili and five were in
Swahili 200. Students have continued on beyond the requirement level,
necessitating the hiring of an additional professor. The program also
added four 200-level classes on literature and culture.  Mahiri Mwita, a
lecturer in Swahili, said students "want to apply their Swahili to their
major." Most of the students studying Swahili are taking it in African
study abroad programs, and fewer than a quarter are using the language to
fulfill requirements.  Some want to pursue healthcare professions and then
work in Africa, while others plan to study policy or literature.
    Mwita said that the program has attracted "the kind of students who
are not just doing Swahili for the language requirement but are looking to
investigate the culture."

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2007/02/19/news/17374.shtml
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